For the residents of Thudiyalur, Chinna Vedampatti, Vellakinaru, Saravanampatti and a few other areas falling under the Coimbatore Corporation’s North Zone, it has been a not so easy start to summer this year - at least on the water supply front.
Corporation sources said that for the residents in many of the aforementioned pockets, the civic body supplied water only once in a week or more.
In a few other places. the water supply cycle is as bad as once in 11 or more days.
In Thudiyalur, until a few weeks ago, it used to be once in 18 days.
The sources said that the rather long water supply cycle had to do with the delayed execution of the water supply augmentation scheme by the Tamil Nadu Water Supply and Drainage Board. The Board was yet to complete the pipeline laying work, fix the motors and charge the pipelines for water supply.
The augmentation work was to supply more water to the aforementioned areas using the water the Coimbatore Corporation had surrendered after it started using the water from its dedicated Pilloor Drinking Water Supply Scheme. The Board was to replace pipelines to improve the carrying capacity, build more overhead tanks and also revamp the distribution network.
But the work had not happened at the expected pace, the sources said.
This shortage of water was not withstanding the fact that the Corporation had diverted an additional two million litres a day using the Kavundampalayam - Vadavalli scheme pipeline to Thudiyalur and other areas.
Board sources said that the work was almost complete and that it would require another week or so to supply water to the aforementioned areas.
Once that was done, the residents would also get on a par with the residents of the old Corporation areas at 135 litres per capita a day.
At present, the residents get around 70 litres per capita a day.
